The invention relates generally to improvements in microprocessor-controlled television games and, more particularly, pertains to new and improved color pattern and alphanumeric character generators for use with computor microprocessor-controlled television electronic game and educational devices.
In the home television electronic game field, the advent of LSI technology has made it possible to provide microprocessors for control of these known electronic games for a reasonable price. With the advent of microprocessors as controllers for television electronic games, it has become possible to expand and enrich the function of these devices. By providing for both alphanumeric and general pattern display in a variety of colors on the television screen, this enrichment became practical.
The prior art techniques for character display and display of color patterns on a cell-by-cell basis on a raster-scan CRT were developed independently of each other. Thus, there exists devices that can display characters on a raster-scan CRT or that can display color patterns on a raster-scan CRT. However, no apparatus of the type claimed herein capable of simultaneously generating both character and color patterns on a raster-scan CRT has hitherto been developed. One of the reasons for this lack of integration between a character generator and a color pattern generator is the manner in which prior color pattern generators operate. Usually, a character code is assigned to each color cell on the display area of the CRT. Several colors are preselected for the color pattern generator, and only one color selection code from these preselected colors is offered or is used to drive each character cell. The present invention overcomes these prior art difficulties by integrating a character generator and color pattern generator functions into a single simplified circuit.